Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible And the Quaran Book

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer offers a glimpse into the relation between a view of God that emphasizes divine violence (in the form of retribution and conquest) as recounted in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the one hand, and the tradition of violence historically endemic in those three religious traditions on the other. In addition to narrating sections from the Bible and the Qur'an that demonstrate what Nelson-Pallmeyer calls the "violence-of-God" tradition, he draws attention to the fundamental hermeneutical approach that warrants both the affirmation and acceptance--the legitimization--of this tradition and ways in which this affirmation warrants the continued violence perpetrated by all three religious traditions. This hermeneutic is essentially construed as a literalist reading and uncritical rendering of the sacred texts by adherents of the respective traditions.

The corrective offered by Nelson-Pallmeyer is the practice of doubt--doubt that the history and teachings regarding God-as-violent recounted in the Bible and the Qur'an are accurate and true, doubt that the text is so thoroughly inspired and determined by God that every letter and punctuation mark is to be regarded as uttered by God, doubt that divine judgment and retribution are exercised by God through the moral and political judgments of contemporary practitioners, and, finally, doubt that the literalist rendering of the sacred texts of these or any religions can aid in seeking and securing a just and peaceable world.

Nelson-Pallmeyer has crafted a brief but salient argument that the seeds of contemporary religious violence can indeed be found in the literalist reading of the sacred texts of these traditions. What is needed is an equally compelling argument that demonstrates that also within the sacred texts of these traditions can be found teachings and impulses and views of interpersonal and international relations that authorize and promote justice, mercy, compassion and peace. Confronted with the impulses to violence and the impuses to peace, we are bound to acknowledge and embrace the warrants for one approach (toward peace), and categorically reject the warrants for the other (toward intra- and inter-religious violence).